I started teaching myself 3d animation and modeling in my spare time at 12 years old. My first introduction to 3d was playing around with a demo of Maya on an old computer my uncle gave me. Later I found the free software Anim8or and in that same year Blender. Blender is where it really started to click for me and I have been using the software ever since. Before that I had always been interested in animation using my parents camera to do stop motion and playing around with flip books. Later on I started making makeshift point and click adventure games for my younger cousins using MS paint and its copy and past tools. I would make character art and keep it saved to the clip board. Copying and pasting characters into new environments I drew and using the transform tool, I would make scenarios them to and move them about the static rooms I made like a dnd dungeon master. It was at that young age I knew I wanted to make games and with the help Blender's at the time built-in game engine I started learning the basic of programing and game design. The rest is history.
Distortions to Sable
Distortions was the first game I took seriously and was my solo venture into the game dev space a 2.5d Metroidvania. Starting in Blender's game engine I quickly realized the limitations I was working with and later switched to Unity. After the switch to Unity I started getting more and more into the technical side of things and how they work together as an artist. Rigging characters was the first thing that had to change in my workflow. How to get my rigs to work well and function properly in the back and forth pipeline from Blender to Unity was one of the biggest benefits to my goal of landing a job in this industry. In 2016 I started posting my Development of Distortions on twitter . It was then a year later I saw Sable's early build for the first time. I followed its development for another year before I was contacted by Gregorios Kythreotis Creative Director at Shedworks. Greg had seen my work on my Twitter and the techniques I had developed for doing stylized animations for game characters. I was hired in early 2018 to work as an animator for Sable.
Early prototypes for Distortions
Sable NPCs and Rigs
At one point the talks of having and NPC system that would allow for universal animations and clothing assets with body shape variation was talked about. I was then charged with not just animating pre existing assets but to come up with new models, rigs and texture maps to help get the world a more diverse population. I stared with a new rig and animation system. I work closed with Daniel Fineberg the other half of Shedworks and lead programmer on how to set up our NPC creation system. First was the models. I started re working Sable's base mesh to be a more neutral human form. With this base I had two layers to my rig, a animation layer and sculpting layer. These two were worked into Blender and Unity Pipeline so all clothing assets and animations could be scaled and adjusted to any body type we could think of. This also included using Unity add-ons such as Magica Cloth. As well as working close with Dan to create a IK system of our own for character foot placement.
All character are using the same rig.
The Things That Creep and Crawl in the Desert.
The humans of Sables world weren't my only task. Bringing the Fauna of this strange alien desert to life was also a responsibility I was tasked with and enjoyed as I went. The wild life of Sable wasn't just a matter of model making and animations but how to get them to work in the world. Using behavior trees, custom scripts, and animation curves to make them interact with Sable and the world.
Some of the various creatures I made in the world of Sable
Recursive Ruin
After the release of Sable I was contacted by BITROT another two man studio run by twin brothers Chad and Curtis McKinney. Curtis and Chad saw my work on Sable and contacted me about their trippy fractal puzzle game. They sent me the first trailer they had made. It was very cool looking. The crazy fractal environments and portal like puzzles. When they showed me the concept art for the characters they wanted me to bring to life I was sold. Interdimensional beings of energy and stone, tortured psyches given form and of course a well read cat friend. Modeling, animation and rigging all familiar to me, but this was a new art style metal and stone no longer portrayed with lines and blocks of color. No this was a more realistic art style and I was excited to take on the challenge. This was also my first go using the Unreal engine. I had to learn to navigate fast and get my workflow working smoothly. Unlike Sable not a single line of code for me. My work was focused on textures, shaders, models, rigs and animation. I was brought on late into development Chad and Curtis told me "We have 4 months. Can you rig pre existing models and if there is time work on some less important assets for us?" I took a look at the models they already had and despite being very nice sculpts they were not game ready. Some of the characters where just sphere and cube stand-ins. "Four month? Yeah I think I can help you guys out" At the end of that time I had modeled rigged and animated 7 characters one who had 3 unique forms and models. Three of those ten models where rigged and retopologized versions of those previous sculpts. The rest of the character assets I made form the ground up. I was even able to get one of the characters they didn't think would make it into the final build as conceptualized.
A handful of the characters I made for Recursive Ruin
What Comes Next
After both Sable and Rucursive Ruin I picked up a couple small modeling and animation gigs for some un announced prototypes. I was also back with Shedworks for a bit to help work on the PS5 release of Sable making model improvements for better performance and even getting a self insert into the game. The goal of MontorHead Studios is the take my work even further. Along with some talented collaborators I hope this studio can bring quality games to life as well as working with other studios and Indie devs to help bring their worlds to life. MonitorHead Studios is committed to quality, flexibility and hard work.